Recent developments in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere have convinced skeptics that U.S. human rights promotion in the Middle East causes more harm than good by inciting instability — positioning the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Western forces to win elections or otherwise seize power.
When it comes to the financial markets, it is a rule of thumb that past success is a poor indicator of future performance. Sadly, it turns out, that's also the case with political science.
Take the latest offering from one of the field's best and brightest. Kenneth N. Waltz, a decorated professor at Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley, is dean of the "neorealism" school in international relations theory -- a deep thinker whose 1965 book "Man, the State, and War" revolutionized our understanding of how nation-states behave.
It's no secret that the United Nations hasn't lived up to its billing as a champion of human rights and democratic values since its establishment in 1945. All too often, the UN system has aided and abetted some of the world's most odious regimes—and served as a political weapon for those countries against the West. Yet even by these standards, this summer has seen an unprecedented level of rot in the world's most powerful international forum.
Is Pakistan an enemy of the United States? For the past two years, the Obama administration has doggedly maintained that the South Asian nation remains a vital American ally, even as it has grappled with what it itself admits is a "complicated" relationship.
Europe and the U.S. may be in grim economic straits, but the Islamic Republic of Iran is doing just fine—at least if Iran's leaders are to be believed. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted relentlessly that his country's economy is healthy, while Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has christened the current Iranian calendar year as the "Year of Domestic Production and Support for Iranian Capital and Labor."